Movie review: Liam Neeson serves up ‘Cold’ revenge in new thriller

Dana Barbuto More Content Now

Thursday

Feb 7, 2019 at 8:42 AMFeb 7, 2019 at 8:42 AM

In “Cold Pursuit,” Liam Neeson plays a snowplow driver seeking vengeance against the drug dealers who murdered his son. What’s shocking about that statement is that this isn’t your typical Neeson actioner in the vein of “Taken” or “The Commuter.” Instead, it’s a pitch-black comedic thriller that’s, in fact, a bloody good time.

If you’re sensing déjà vu, it’s probably because “Cold Pursuit” is practically a scene-for-scene redo of the 2014 Norwegian film, “In Order of Disappearance,” which starred Stellan Skarsgard and was directed by Hans Petter Moland, who also helms the American remake.

When we meet Neeson’s Nels Coxman he’s just a guy who keeps a swath of vital roadway plowed in Kehoe, a tiny Colorado ski town. He’s a simple man, Citizen of the Year, devoted to his wife (Laura Dern) and young adult son (Micheál Richardson, Neeson’s real-life son). After a quick intro to set the tone (cold and dark), the Coxmans are at the morgue ID’ing their son’s body, which is the first of many corpses popping up in Frank Baldwin’s script. They die in all sorts of ways, from torture, to shootings, to pistol-whippings. The film keeps count of the deaths via an on-screen tally. Violence is abundant but Baldwin livens it with wry wit and dark humor. It’s very Tarantino, cut with a pinch of the Coens’ “Fargo.”

Vigilante justice is nothing new for Neeson, but even though Nels doesn’t possess a particular set of skills, he doles out beatings like a boss. Up the ladder he goes, sacrificing one low-level thug (Speedo, Limbo, Shiv, Avalanche, Bone, to name a few) for another until reaching the top: Viking, aka Trevor Calcote (played with sociopathic glee by Tom Bateman), the kind of thug who pitches a fit because one of his henchmen fed his son Fruity Pebbles. But there’s more. Nels’ killing spree inadvertently reignites a feud between Viking’s gang and a Native American drug rival, White Bull (Tom Jackson), who now also seeks revenge for his own son. When the three fathers finally meet, the results are quite entertaining - blood for blood; son for son.

Domenick Lombardozzi (“Entourage”) makes an impression as Viking’s right-hand man, but the women in the movie are barely a cliché, which is usually de rigueur in these testosterone-fueled flicks. As an eager noob, Emmy Rossum - in a fur state trooper cap (think Marge from “Fargo”) - uses her feminine wiles to sniff out that something’s amiss. Dern has little dialogue and the script sends her away early. Julia Jones has little to do as Viking’s ex-wife, though she’ll grab your attention in one particular scene, which Baldwin and Moland smartly give a #MeToo makeover. In the original she’s very much a target of Viking’s rage. Here, the character is used more to show what an idiot he is. Elizabeth Thai is a walking stereotype, playing a gold-digging wife to Nels’ brother, “Wingman,”(William Forsythe).

Neeson isn’t tasked with carrying the whole film on his aging shoulders. He probably could, because if cinematic history has taught us anything it’s that revenge is a dish best served cold, garnished with a little Neeson on the side.

Dana Barbuto may be reached at dbarbuto@patriotledger.com or follow her on Twitter @dbarbuto_Ledger.